DURHAM, N.H. – The public myth about Internet sex crimes holds that
pedophiles are lurking online looking to victimize young children. This differs
markedly from the reality that most victims are teenagers who are curious about
sex and are seduced by someone who appeals to their desire for understanding
and romance.

On Tuesday, July 24, 2007, David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against
Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, testified about
the myths and realities of online sex crimes at a hearing before the U.S. Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in Washington, D.C.

“The public impression about this crime is that we have ‘Internet
pedophiles,’ who have moved from the playgrounds into your living room
through the Internet connection, who target young children by pretending to
be other children, who lie about their ages, identities and motives, who trick
the children into providing personal information like their names and addresses,
or who harvest it from MySpace. And then armed with this information, these
criminals stalk the children, abduct them and rape them or worse,” Finkelhor
testified.

“But our research suggests a different reality. We have found that the
predominant online sex crime victims are not young children, but rather teenagers.
These are criminal seductions that take advantage of common teenage vulnerabilities,” he
testified. “The offenders lure teens to meet them for sexual encounters
after weeks of explicit online conversations that play on the teen’s
desires for romance, adventure, sexual information and understanding. These
teens are often troubled youth with histories of family turmoil and physical
and sexual abuse.”

According to Finkelhor, in 73 percent of these crimes, the youth meet the
offender on multiple occasions, for multiple sexual encounters. Half the victims
were described by police as being in love with or feeling close friendship
with the offender. In a quarter of the cases the victim ran away from home
to be with the offender.

Teenagers become vulnerable to online sex crimes when they talk about sex
online with strangers and have a pattern of multiple risky activities on the
web — going to sex sites and chat rooms, and interacting with lots of people
there.

“To prevent these crimes, we have to take on more awkward and complicated
topics that start with an acceptance of the fact that some teens are curious
about sex and looking for romance and adventure. We need to educate them about
why hooking up with a 32-year-old has major drawbacks like jail, bad press
and public embarrassment, and why they should be discouraging, not patronizing,
sites and people who are doing offensive things online, fascinating as they
may seem,” Finkelhor testified.